Stolen Vanagons in SF: My Recent Experience with my 1975 Volvo

[Saturn]

Reading about the vans having disappeared in the last week here in the Bay Area, I wanted to post my experience and learnings of losing my 1975 Volvo 242DL to a car thief. Since there are not many post-recovery follow-ups or much insight on how the vehicle was initially taken, figured it would be worth sharing what I learned. My 242 is a pretty unique looking car, it pretty much sticks out in a city full of appliance cars. While I have done a great deal of mechanical work and upgrades to the car, the paint job on the car to quote someone seeing the car for the first time: "It looks like its been through re-entry from orbit." While there is no Vanagon-specific content in this post, it should give some insight and foresight to this community. I have wrenched on Vanagons and other assorted VWs over the years, I do own a 1995 Eurovan Camper.

In November, the Volvo was stolen from in front of my place here in San Francisco (North side of Bernal Heights). It was taken at around 6:30pm on a Wednesday night. Luckily, I was able to obtain footage from a neighbor across the street a day later and it was a fairly quick execution, about three minutes from initial break-in to the car being driven away. Three days later on Saturday afternoon, the car was abandoned at 18th and Noe Streets in the Castro, about two miles away. Lucky for me the battery was completely discharged and the person could not get it started. There was no damage to the body work but I did lose a bunch of tools and other items out of the trunk.

I had the assistance of both friends and strangers alike in working to locate and find the "Vanished Volvo" which was amazing. I was a bit surprised with the outpouring of general support, "How can I help?" messages as well as the amount of indignation and anger. Friends went out driving around different neighborhoods searching and scouting. During this three-day period I spend about 3-4 hours a day driving around the eastern side of San Francisco searching for the car. At the same time it was an emotionally and spiritually draining experience, this cannot be underestimated.

All-in-all, I am extremely, extremely lucky and fortunate to have retrieved the Volvo back totally intact. While there is some damage to the interior, it returned from this ordeal in much better condition than I was imagining.

Mandatory Vanagon Content
(The Volvo described in this post is just visible on the left side of this image...)

On the Snowball Rally in Oct 2021 (Mt Rose Summit)

Rest stop during the Motherlode Rally in June 2021

The Story of the Vanished Volvo
I discovered the Volvo missing at 9:30pm when I returned home after meeting friends at a neighborhood watering hole. Immediately went to file a police report at the Mission station and posted about it on Instagram and Facebook including pictures of the car, contact information and the case number. From 10:30pm to 1:30am cruised the known areas of the city for stolen cars to be found/dumped: Hunters Point/Candlestick Park, Bayview, Potrero and the Mission. Additionally posted the news/information to Turbobricks.com (Thesamba.com for Volvos) and another Volvo mailing list I subscribe to. Thursday morning and evening I again hit the streets to search for the missing car. Meanwhile, the story of the stolen Volvo was being echoed by friends and others on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) which really helped the visibility of this theft. Thursday afternoon I received the first sighting of the car from a friend's IG posting, one of their friends ID'd it driving in the Mission at 9:45 Thursday morning, later that day they saw the posting about it being stolen and contacted my friend.

Friday morning I staked out the intersection of where the 242 was spotted the day before just in case lightning struck twice. In the afternoon on the recommendation of a friend joined NextDoor and put up a post about the car. Friday evening at around 9:20pm I received a text from a friend the Volvo was just spotted and photographed driving at 20th & Guerrero Streets by one of their buddies. This is approximately a mile away from where I live. Ran out and was able to get to the vicinity by 9:30 and spent two and half hours driving around the Mission hoping to find the car. Reached out to the person who first photographed the car and received some further details about their spotting and tracking the 242. When I got back home I found a message from my Turbobricks posting. Someone else had encountered and photographed it driving in the Mission around 9:25pm at 24th and Valencia streets. Figured I probably missed the car by 2-3 minutes that evening. This was good news as the thief was driving the Volvo around and hadn't seemed to take it to strip it.

20th and Guerrero Sighting

24th and Valencia Sighting

Saturday I continued the search and drove through 95% of the Mission, Noe Valley and part of the Castro. Just before 5pm, a text arrived from yet another friend with a picture of my car sitting at 18th and Noe from one of their buddies. Race over there to secure the car but then had to wait five hours for SFPD officers to actually arrive to officially release my car. When I first got to the Volvo, a guy walked over from a restaurant across the street and said he saw the car and remember it from NextDoor and had already contacted SFPD. He was also friend of a friend and said I would probably be getting a message about the car through them. While sitting with the car as it blocked the crosswalk, did hear from a couple neighbors about seeing someone trying to jump start the car as well as someone pushing the car across 17th street earlier in the afternoon. Indeed, the car could not be started due to lack of electrons. Swapped batteries with my other car, it started right up and drove it back to a friend's locked garage a mile away. In retrospect, my search grid during Saturday afternoon came within about three blocks of where my car was abandoned which was a little frustrating in hindsight to say the least.

Learnings from this Experience:

1) Install a disabler, kill switch or other deterrent
There was nothing like this set up on the 242 though the person who stole my car possessed the tools to boost the car but did not seem to have any real knowledge of Volvos. The camera footage from across the street shows the person first trying to use a key on the door lock then resorts to a slimjim. Once in, they soon have the car started (with a bump or jiggle key, the ignition was not damaged at all) but they were unable to get the car into reverse gear. The car lunges forward three times as they didn't know about the lockout mechanism on the shifter. After the 3rd attempt, they can seen getting out of the car to push it backwards off the curb. Eventually they found reverse and then were on their way. The 242 has daytime running lights set up, and the person who took the car never turned on the running lights of the car. In both sets of photos taken on Friday night, the driver has not turned on the running lights. I didn't broadcast that aspect as I though it might be something which would help catch the attention of SFPD.

The actual break-in starts around the 1:30 Mark:
https://video.nest.com/clip/63806e0cd52640c39abc8554acc541a5.mp4

Ignition switch post recovery, no visible damage:

2) Post it on Social Media with Pictures and Contact Information and Keep the Story Visible
Fortunately I have a fair amount of gearhead and car-enthusiast friends which helped get the word out. All the people who spotted the car in the wild were friends of friends, I did not know them directly. It helped the car was being driving around, about 150 miles were put on the car over these three days. Also fortunate was I had updates about the car every 12-15 hours from the neighbors camera footage, being spotted and pictures of it being driving around. This helped keep postings of the car/theft at the top of the feeds and visible. Be prepared for some footwork, I knocked on several neighbors doors on the block to ask if they had street-facing cameras. Went to the corner deli, restaurant and bodega to see if they had any accessible footage. The Bodega did have street-facing cameras, unfortunately they didn't help much as my car was parked at the very edge of their recording field.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mightyohm/status/1459589732900302850


3) Check for Parking Tickets and Fastrak (bridge tolls)
What I didn't know about is you can proactively look up your car to see if a ticket(s) has been issued, though its not real-time and may have a lag time of a day or so. A month after the car was stolen, I did received a notice from SFMTA about the Volvo earning a street cleaning ticket early that Friday morning. The ticket was issued on Sanchez Street near 17th, about a block from where it was abandoned the next day. Connecting parking enforcement to a stolen license plate database seems a total no-brainer, but I guess not. Closely monitored my Fastrak account to see if the car was pinged going across one of the area bridges. These take several days to be listed so it is not the freshest intel, but definitely worth checking.
https://wmq.etimspayments.com/pbw/include/sanfrancisco/input.jsp


4) Do Not Expect Much Assistance from SFPD
On Saturday morning while out searching I flagged down a cruiser driving behind me. Explained I was hunting for my stolen Volvo, shared with them the car was being seen driven around and without the running lights. What they related is unless they see it parked there is not much they can do. SFPD has a no-high speed pursuit policy and so if they do see the car and it bolts, they will not pursue. It mainly about prioritization and car theft does not seem to be high on that list. During the five hours of waiting for SFPD, saw three police car drive by the intersection. Called SFPD about once an hour and the standard reply was "its a busy night." When officers did finally show up at 10pm, they were quite surprised the car had been located so quickly and pretty much intact.

The third SFPD cruiser driving by the 242 in the crosswalk without stopping (7:25pm)

.

[Californio]

Great post! Thank you for this. Former 544/122S owner here.

The one thing I can't fathom is why they go to all the trouble to steal them, and then just leave them a short ways away. Just having fun?

I remember seeing a clip of some girl in Colorado lamenting the death of her friend who got shot stealing a car. She was saying something like, "hey, we all used to do that as teenagers." Is that really true, they do this for fun as a rite of passage?

Anyway, just musings, thanks for taking the time to post this. Glad you got it back, cool car even with the patina.

[tarandusVDub]

Wow, quite a story.

Not being a thief myself, I am amazed at how persistent people are to steal vehicles, then just dink around until something goes wrong and they abandon them.

I guess there just isn't enough risk involved, so why the hell not. The cop cars cruising right on by repeatedly says it all.

Thanks for sharing and so glad you got it back. Looks like a sweet ride. I've got a kill switch and GPS in mine. So far so good.
_________________
1990 Syncro 16" DoppleKabine 2.1 DJ 112i
________________________
Sold: 1972 Bay Campmobile; 1984 Westy, base model, 2WD.

[Wildthings]

Seems like having a marginal battery could be a good thing at times. Maybe make it so the lights could not be turned off without punching some magic button, this would not only run the battery down with time, but would also make the car conspicuous.

[1988M5]

[Sodo]

[do.dah]

So glad you got your cherished ride back! Thank you so much for the details of how the theft went down. Hopefully we can learn from it. So hope that some of us vanagoneers can offer insights to our volvo brethrens, since they freely offer help/insights to us.

[Wellington]

Glad you got your car back.
I had a couple of Volvos, can't kill those cars. I had a 240 GT at one point, is yours an original GT, or you swapped parts? Only indication is the front grill and wheels, and obviously the paint, I think i recall the GT only came in silver.
Left the Volvo scene cause they were terrible in snow, RWD.

[jocoman]

My '97 850 wagon turbo AWD has the immobilizer on it. Works so well that sometimes I can't even start it. HAHA.
Glad you got your ride back!
_________________
'86 Westfalia 2.0L Zetec
'97 Volvo 850 AWD Turbo
" The fun never stops"

[Jake de Villiers]

A very educational story, to be sure. Great work to get your car back! Are you related to Sanchius?
_________________
'84 Vanagon GL 1.9 WBX
'86 Westy Weekender Poptop/2.5 Subaru/5 Speed Posi/Audi Front Brakes/16 x 7 Mercedes Wheels - answers to 'Dixie'
@jakedevilliersmusic1
http://sites.google.com/site/subyjake/mydixiedarlin%27
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
www.thebassspa.com

[sanchius]

[Jake de Villiers]

[Abscate]

A Husky would have been too obvious, I guess. Glad all your V cars are safe. I think I helped talk S into saving his daughters blue V70 a bit ago.
_________________
.ssS!

[Saturn]

[Saturn]

Thank you for all the congratulatory comments on getting my car back. I will reiterate I am fortunate it turned out as well as it did. It is great to hear some of the recently liberated vans have been located and reunited with their owners. I would be very interested in hearing what those people uncover, but not counting on getting much information to be honest.

As another data point, just after Christmas, friends had their 1973 Mercedes 450SL stolen here in SF (Anza and Stanyon Streets) they were apart of the Laguna Seca camping expedition. Two days later it was abandoned at an intersection on Cesar Chavez Street between the Bayview and Potrero neighborhoods, about a mile away from me. My friends called since it was so close by to "secure" it as SFPD came across it derelict on the road and they can have it towed after 20 minutes. When the owner's wife arrived on their way back from work, she turned on the headlights and there was not a hint of light. We pretty much assumed it was a discharged battery issue like my 242. Ended up pushing the Mercedes about 30 yards into a parking lot to try and get it up and running before calling for a tow. The wife had to get the keys for it so at the same time I went back home to grab a spare battery to attempt to get it running.

After swapping the batteries out, went behind the driver seat to start the car but couldn't get the key in the ignition. After several tries, then noticed the cylinder was sitting in the #2 position. Using the tip of the key, rotated the cylinder to the left and it returned to the position. Once that happened the steering wheel locked and if it wasn't in the #2 position we could not have gotten it into the parking lot off the street. The key then went in just fine and the car started right up. The wife noted the jumper cables which were in the trunk were now in the back seat. Since the trunk lock was not damaged, it is pretty evident thieves have bump/jiggle keys for not only the ignition but also the door and trunk locks.

[Ronzo_volvo_guy]

Saturn; ...I'm also happy it worked out well (all things considered) for you...there's nothing like an experience like this to bring home the point about installing an anti-theft provision(s)...and as an alternative to the BK's surface of the sun illumination of the driver idea...how about an "area denial by sound" system which floods the interior with 200(honest)Watts of your least favorite "music", or maybe just 2kHz sawtoothwave audio...10 (honest) Watts is enough to make your ears ring, and I doubt a carthief is going to stick around drawing that attention to himself...bigWatt Audio systems are cheap nowadays...

Sanchius; In front of a Volvo Amazon!!! Now you're in my sandbox! (See: SW-EM.com) Compliments on the Swedish Steel!

Cheers